Mar
3
Status Update 03.02.2010
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
It is a sad feeling every time I write the date and the year in the title of these posts. I look back and think wow I am still trying to get this one exam done! I am wondering if CCIE Pursuit is still searching for me on Google (upper right hand corner?) Anyhow here I am still am crawling along.
Since Monday I have finished Switching, RIP, and EIGRP from INE’s Workbook 1. I should be able to get through OSPF tomorrow. BGP is going to slow me down though. BGP is where I started to get into trouble on my lab attempt in October and it just snowballed from there 
Some of this stuff I am just having trouble getting my head into. I either waited too long to start back up, or not long enough. I am just dreading getting into more of the new topics it feels like they just dumped onto a huge pile already. I am preparing to go through both my INE and Narbik labs once I get into my weak areas like advance BGP. I think I was in too much of a rush to move through the topology labs and into the full labs last time. Now you toss in the complication of the troubleshooting section and you have to wonder how do you fit that in to the mix?
I did get a copy of the written exam guide and almost dropped it on a small child. It would given them a concussion 
Hopefully I can read through sections and prep for the OEQ’s like I did the last time. I have to take the lab or the written again by October. This way I am prepared for either. Oh well back to some labs and the long march…
Mar
1
IPv6 Myths Over At Cisco IOS hints and tricks
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
I like how Ivan thinks!
I will have a status update coming tomorrow or Wednesday as well. It has been a long few weeks between work, my wife spending a night in the emergency room and everyday life 
Once you’ve spent a few hours trying to understand the implications of IPv6, you quickly realize that the only significant change is the increase in the address length. All the other goals that some people had been talking about were either forgotten or failed due to huge mismatch between idealistic view of the Internet IPv6 developers had 15 years ago and today’s reality. However, you still find mythical properties of IPv6 propagated across the Internet…
Head over and read the full post Here
Feb
8
New Cisco Routing and Switch Lab Locations Over At Pearson
Filed Under CCIE General | 7 Comments | by CCIE Journey
There has been rumors Cisco did this during a beta test in August, but there was no verification. I am just wondering what the Pearson RTP location means for the lab being offered right at Cisco’s offices in RTP, or if this is just a few times per year event.
Cisco Certification Testing
April 2010
Register now to take a Cisco CCIE exam being offered during April 2010 at 20 Pearson VUE Professional Test Centers around the world.
Seating is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis—please register today online or call the Pearson VUE Customer Service line at 877-404-EXAM / 877-404-3926 (Monday–Friday, 7:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m. CT).
Feb
5
“The death of Dynamips: they’ve got it all wrong” from Ivan Pepelnjak
Filed Under CCIE General | 1 Comment | by CCIE Journey
A good read if you were starting to get worried about Dynamips atleast for now
Today I really wanted to write a deeply technical post (for example, Joe Cozzupoli sent me working configs for QPPB in Inter-AS MPLS VPN environment), but a gem from the SearchNetworking site caught my undistracted attention: they claim the licensing changes introduced in IOS release 15.0 target illicit use of Cisco IOS by Dynamips. The story quotes two of my blogger friends: Stretch and Greg (congratulations to both !!!). Each of them makes very valid points (I am wholeheartedly supporting Stretch’s plea for educational licenses), but somehow the story’s author managed to mix ingredients from their stories to come to a sensational (and totally wrong) conclusion (with a great headline).
Jan
31
I Always Develop ADD When I Read QOS
Filed Under CCIE General | 1 Comment | by CCIE Journey
No matter how hard I try, I can only do so many pages at a time before my attention starts to drift away. I did manage to get through a good amount of notes and reading today. QOS buried me on my lab attempt and I really need to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Between QOS and Security I should have enough to keep me busy this week. I was going to start again with switching and move from there, but I don’t feel like I need to start over from the beginning. Everything is still very fresh in my head, and going through my notes and labs on the core topics will give me a better idea on what I need to go over on those topics. I knew if if my brain thought I was starting again from scratch there would be no way I could keep it under my total control Hopefully this week I can lab both of these up with INE’s workbook I and move ahead.
Now I have to decide what date I would like to make another attempt at the lab. I won’t pay and schedule this time unless I feel really good about it. Labs dates seem to be fairly open right now. You could pick one up for February 2nd if you wanted to tonight. The biggest obstacle will be my wife’s due date of July 14th. The worse part is the mobile lab will be in Toronto Canada July 16th. Toronto is a whole hour and a half drive from my house. I just can’t risk my wife deciding to go into lab during that week… With RTP closed until July if I want to attempt the lab sooner I will have to fly out to San Jose CA. I will have to see where I am after I attend INE’s 6 day bootcamp.
Jan
23
New and Improved Advanced Technologies Class on Demand Arriving over @ INE
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
Good news for current End to End customers or those that just have the COD series!
New and Improved Advanced Technologies Class on Demand Arriving
By Anthony Sequeira, #15626
INE is thrilled to announce the arrival of a new Advanced Technologies Class on Demand series!For years, this product has served as the (Tier 1) foundation for INE students’ journeys to CCIE certification. With some new instructors, and a stricter adherence to Version 4 exam topics, here are the upcoming modules you can expect through February, 2010.
Week of Jan 25, 2010
Switching
Frame RelayWeek of Feb 1, 2010
HDLC
PPPWeek of Feb 8, 2010
GRE
RIPv2
OSPFWeek of Feb 15, 2010
EIGRPWeek of Feb 22, 2010
BGP
Jan
14
Google Haiti Response Donation Page
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
I just wanted to post this link for anyone looking to donate and help out the people of Haiti deal with this disaster. The page has links to many different relief organizations you can donate to.
Google Disaster Relief in Haiti
I also received this through email to post:
” Hey, I read your post today mentioning how to donate for disaster relief to Haiti. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but the international non-profit group CARE already has over 100 of its workers on the ground in the country and the organization is also raising money to deliver aid to the 3 million people affected by the disaster. The group has been there since 1954 and they have the infrastructure in place to begin giving aid immediately:
I thought this might interest you and your readers. Thank you for any coverage
you can give.”
Jan
12
Status Update 01.12.2010
Filed Under CCIE General | 5 Comments | by CCIE Journey
“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom.” – Earl Shoaf
I think that quote pretty much sums everything up to this point. It is definitely time to move forward once again. I have been idle for far too long. I haven’t really done much since failing my first attempt this past October. I had some decisions to make as to what to do for equipment and material. In that end I am moving forward with my Narbik workbooks, and my INE end to end program. The biggest factor in all of this is equipment. I have Dynamips running on my Mac Mini bridged out to real 3560’s for Narbik’s and a full blown rack for my INE material. The INE rack was easy to update since I already had a 1841 router in the rack. Just used two more 1841 spares to update the rack. Budgets are tight right now, I have to make the most use of what I have available already. To make use of any other vendor material would of added another cost to everything. Also, I worked it out to receive a bootcamp in exchange for the INE banner that I have on the site. So I will be attending one of their camps in the next few months to really get moving. That in itself does not limit or influence blog posts or experiences with any material used by INE, or anyone else.
One thing I really need to do is sit down and work a plan out. I don’t even know where to begin! A good amount of the core material is still fresh in my head. Do I start with MPLS and my weak points? Do I start again with the five day COD to refresh? Do I work with INE’s workbook I and Narbik’s 2.0 and hammer down that way? Do I work right from the blueprint top to bottom? I am honestly not sure. I do have the new forth edition of the written guide as well I want to read through. Either way I have been fighting this day off for a few months, but it is time to simply move forward…
Dec
24
Merry Christmas to everyone out there celebrating!
Filed Under CCIE General | Leave a Comment | by CCIE Journey
and have a good New Years!
Dec
4
FRTS Can Be A Lying Whore
Filed Under CCIE General | 2 Comments | by Joe
Some of you may have caught this over on groupstudy where I posted last week. I thought it would be nice to share it here on CCIE Journey as well. We all know that in FRTS the formula that is always supposed to hold true is this:
Tc = Bc / CIR
With this simple formula we can calculate everything we need to know, and all the math works out…according to every book and Cisco doc I have ever read. What they don’t tell you about are the limitations of the traffic-shaping. For instance…
R2(config-map-class)#do sh run int s0/1/0 | i frame-relay
encapsulation frame-relay
frame-relay class foo
frame-relay traffic-shaping
frame-relay map ip 100.100.100.5 205 broadcast
no frame-relay inverse-arp
R2(config-map-class)#do sh run | beg map-class
map-class frame-relay foo
frame-relay cir 768000
frame-relay bc 80007
With this setup, I expect the long standing formula Tc = Bc / CIR to hold true. Therefore Tc should be equal to 80007 / 768000 = 0.10417578125 seconds = 104ms rounded down and indeed it is
R2(config-map-class)#do sh traffic
Interface  Se0/1/0
Access Target Byte Sustain Excess Interval Increment Adapt
VC List Rate Limit bits/int bits/int (ms) (bytes) Active
205 768000 10000Â 80007 0 104 9984 -
However, as soon as I cross the Bc boundary of 80007 and set it to 80008 my Tc is changed to what appears to be (Bc / CIR) / 2 !!! WTF?
R2(config-map-class)#do sh traffic
Interface Se0/1/0
Access Target Byte Sustain Excess Interval Increment Adapt
VC List Rate Limit bits/int bits/int (ms) (bytes) Active
205 768000 5000 80008 0 52 4992 -
As you can see the Tc has been set to 52 ms which just so happens to be 1/2 of the previous value of 104. As it turns out, it appears there is a limit in the IOS that only allows you to have up to a 10,000 Byte Limit. The byte-limit is the number of bytes you can send per Tc. So if we send 80007 bits per Tc (The Bc) we send 80007 / 8 bytes = 10000.87500 bytes which IOS will round down to 10,000 bytes. The minute we change Bc to 80008 the formula for how Tc is calculated is dynamically changed.
Tc = Bc / CIR. Tc = 80008 / 768000 SHOULD give us a Tc of 104ms but it doesn’t. It gives us a Tc of 52ms (exactly half). Why? 80008 / 8 = 10001 Byte limit. Apparently if you cross a 10,000 byte limit the formula for calculating Tc changes. Nice huh?
One other note: Try manipulating Bc or CIR sometime to give yourself a Tc of 250ms. You won’t be able to : ) It seems the IOS maxes out at a Tc of 249ms. If you try to go higher it will just make the Tc 125ms.
